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Reports

Reports provides short summaries of the latest findings of academic institutes, think-tanks, charities, pressure groups and government and international bodies from 2011 to 2014. The reports included can, in the main, be accessed free of charge. For a review of the academic literature, for which journal subscriptions are required, the Social Policy digest is a good source.

Each year as many as 68,000 people on jobseeker's allowance have their benefits taken away unfairly and face unnecessary hardship as a result, according to a new report from the Policy Exchange think tank. The report calls for the system of sanctions to be overhauled.

The coalition government has reiterated its commitment to end child poverty in the UK by 2020 through tackling what it calls the underlying causes of deprivation. Plans to offer a revised measure of child poverty appear to have been shelved.

The pay gap between the over-50s and under-21s has ballooned by 50 per cent in the past decade and a half, at the same time as people in their 20s have seen rents rise by more than a third, according to a new report from the Intergenerational Foundation.

The national minimum wage in the UK is no longer strong enough to tackle the country’s low pay problems, according to a report from the Resolution Foundation think tank.

The report presents the interim findings of a review headed by George Bain, who was originally responsible for overseeing the introduction of the minimum wage in 1998 under the previous Labour government.

Low incomes, unemployment and benefit delays have combined to trigger increased demand for foodbanks among the UK's poorest families, according to an independent report commissioned by the government.

The report, by researchers at Warwick University and the Food Ethics Council, directly contradicts the claim by a coalition government minister that the rise in foodbank use is due to the fact that there are now more of them.

The total number of sanctions imposed on benefit claimants in the year to September 2013 was 897,690 – the highest figure for any 12-month period since jobseeker's allowance was introduced in 1996 – according to figures published by the Department for Work and Pensions.

The figures show the number of sanctions imposed under the tougher new regime introduced by the coalition government in October 2012. They cover jobseeker's allowance (JSA) and employment and support allowance (ESA).

Tax credits and benefits play a crucial role in lifting low-paid workers out of poverty, according to new research published by the TUC.

An analysis by economist Howard Reed for the TUC, based on a range of fictional households, shows that low-paid workers need both decent pay rises and help from tax credits and benefits if they are to make ends meet.

The richest ten per cent of the UK working-age population now have nearly twice the original income between them of the entire bottom half of the distribution, according to a report from the Resolution Foundation think tank.

The Foundation's annual audit of trends in living standards also reveals that, despite the beginnings of a slow improvement, the living standards of the typical household will still be 3.5 per cent lower in 2018-19 than they were at the start of the financial crisis of 2008, only just inching above the level they were last at in 2005-06.

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PSE:UK is a major collaboration between the University of Bristol, Heriot-Watt University, The Open University, Queen's University Belfast, University of Glasgow and the University of York working with the National Centre for Social Research and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. ESRC Grant RES-060-25-0052.